Fragrance
by Aleirian's Chosen
Summary: Isumi remembers the fragrance of gardenia with a bittersweet memory... Written for LJ community 30kisses. Chapter two is follow up ficlet: Unspoken.
1. Fragrance

**Fragrance**

Disclaimer: Hotta and Obata's. Not mine.  
Rating: K+ (as always, for concepts)  
_Summary: Isumi remembers the fragrance of gardenia with a bittersweet memory... (Written for LJ community 30kisses)_

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"Aniki, what's gardenia?"

He glanced up from the kifu he'd been studying, and saw his youngest brother standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

"Gardenia?" he echoed. "It's a type of flower."

Ken'ichi seemed to think about this for a moment. "Oh. What's it smell like?"

He blinked, eyes misting over as he stared unseeingly at a blank wall.

"It smells like..."

_  
He brushed a kiss over Waya's cheek, closing his eyes for a moment as a flowery scent wafted over him. _

"Gardenia?" he guessed, stroking Waya's soft hair, the source of the fragrance. It must have been in his shampoo.

Waya nodded, a somewhat absent look on his face.

"Isumi-san..."

"What's on your mind?" he asked, sensing that something was wrong. He tried to drape his arm over Waya's shoulder, but the other shrugged it off suddenly.

Waya's gaze was steady as he looked up, meeting his eyes directly. He took a breath, and after a pause, said,

"We need to talk."

"Aniki?"

He blinked, having momentarily forgotten that his brother was still there. "I'm sorry, Ken-chan. You asked about gardenia, right?"

"Yes. What does it smell like?" Ken'ichi prompted.

He struggled in his mind, but was unable to resist the tug of memories as they swept him away once again. "It's...bittersweet..."

_  
"What's the matter?" _

Something constricted within his chest as he saw the serious expression on Waya's face. His uneasiness was building rapidly at a steady rate; it was all he could do to still present a calm exterior.

Waya bit his lip for a moment, glanced at him, and glanced away. He was fidgeting, a habit that Isumi knew meant there was something on his mind. Usually something unpleasant.

Finally, he took a deep breath. "Isumi-san, we can't be together anymore."

"Bittersweet?" Ken'ichi frowned to himself. "How can a flower smell bittersweet?"

"Well..." He paused, wondering why he'd even said that. Gardenia, technically, didn't smell bittersweet at all. It had a lovely fragrance. What on earth had possessed him to describe it as "bittersweet?"

"It's not bittersweet," he corrected, for his brother's sake. "It smells really nice."

"Yeah, but what does it smell like, aniki? Roses? Lilies?"

"No. Not exactly like any other flower...not really. It's...different..."

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"...What are you saying?" His voice was soft, and it felt as though an invisible hand had wrapped around his neck, choking him. _

"We can't...I can't..." Waya stalled, apparently at a loss for words. Closed his eyes, as if preparing himself for something. Then, he finally continued, "You never asked where I've been lately."

"Should I have?" His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. His gaze flickered over Waya's face, then moved away. This seemed to spark Waya's anger, for he suddenly exploded.

"Yes! You should have! You should have been concerned that I'm not spending as much time with you, you should wonder what I was doing, if I was cheating on you--"

"Who is it?" His voice was soft, but successfully cut off Waya's tirade; he just barely managed to make himself speak. Isumi suspected he already knew the answer...but a part of him refused to back down until all the questions were cleared.

Waya's anger deflated as quickly as it had flared. There was a pause, then in a small voice,

"Hikaru."

"What do you mean by different?" Ken'ichi asked.

He blinked, trembling slightly from the ghost of tears and pain of so long ago. He forced a mild expression onto his face before replying to his brother.

"All flowers smell different, if you take the time to distinguish each." Explanations about flowers he could handle. Right? "Gardenia isn't like a rose, or lilies."

"Then how do you describe what it smells like?"

He shook his head, slowly. "You can't... You have to actually smell it to know. You have to experience it for yourself, in order to understand..."

_  
Shindou. He should have known. Come to think of it, he probably did, just wouldn't allow himself to acknowledge the fact. _

"I can't keep lying to you." Waya tried to take a breath to calm himself, but even his breathing seemed to be shaking. He closed his eyes, mentally preparing himself to speak.

"I didn't mean for it to happen this way. I meant to tell you, I never wanted to hurt you. That's why I can't put this off any longer... Only...I'm afraid it's already been too long." Waya's opened his eyes, and his gaze was begging for forgiveness and understanding. "I can't control how I feel. All I can do is do what I think -- what I hope -- is right. And...I'm asking you to let me go."

Beyond the sudden stab to his heart, his mind was still rooted in denial and loathe to relinquish its hold on "what might have been" as it was unwillingly pulled toward reality.

Let me go.

Let me go...

Let me...

Let...

Me...

"Go," he said softly, not looking at Waya.

"Isumi-san," there was a pleading tone to his voice, "don't be mad at me. I can't live with that. Just understand. I didn't want this to happen. I still want to be friends, just the way it was when we first met."

Isumi closed his eyes, firmly ignoring the burning as bitter tears sought to escape, willing away the pain that constricted his throat, making it impossible to breathe.

"Waya..." he managed to say. "Just go."

His vision was all darkness behind closed lids, and the blood pounding in his ears rendered all other sounds obsolete.

But faintly, so faintly it might have been his imagination, the soft scent of gardenia seemed to wrap around him for a moment, before dissipating into nothingness.

"Could you say gardenia has a distinct fragrance, then?"

He blinked. Somehow, his little brother's description seemed to fit better than any he'd been able to produce. A small smile shadowed his lips.

"Yes, Ken-chan. Gardenia is very much distinct."

It still wasn't a complete definition, not by far. He could think up a dictionary full of words to describe gardenia: beautiful, haunting, nostalgic, bittersweet... Yet none of them could quite describe the flower's scent, or all the meaning it held.

Maybe he would never come up with an accurate description of the elusive scent that still haunted his dreams. Perhaps he would never understand.

But that, after all, is the nature of life, and of love.

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I actually have no idea what gardenia smells like, so apologies if this seemed rather weird... 


	2. Unspoken

**Unspoken**

Disclaimer: Hotta and Obata's. I not own McDonalds, nor any other brand names mentioned.  
Rating: K+ (as always, for concepts)  
_Summary: Waya and Isumi's troubles stemmed from a lack of communication. (Written for LJ community 30kisses)_

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They say that understanding is key to relationships, but Waya never liked to listen to what "they" had to say. Maybe that was why it had all turned out like this. 

He stuffed the shirt into his duffel bag, careless to the wrinkles that were sure to manifest itself upon the linen. Not like the shirt was particularly wrinkle free to start with. Neither he nor Shindou were the neatest housekeepers, both never having gotten the hang of folding laundry in the neat way their mothers did. That might change for Shindou in the near future, but Waya wasn't sticking around long enough to find out.

Looking around the small apartment again, he gathered the rest of his clothing along with some odd books. He paused as he came across a snow globe in the corner of a desk, staring at the object for long moments before leaving it be. Shindou had given him that for Christmas a while back; Waya wasn't about to take anything that would remind him of this relationship.

He did pick up his radio-cassette player, though he had a perfectly good CD player at his place. It was more a matter of pride than anything, carefully defining what was his and what was not. And what he didn't want, like that bottle of Wada Calcium CD3 in the cabinet. Besides, he and Shindou never did figure out who bought it in the first place, each having declared himself innocent of the act.

Waya took one last glance around the apartment. Nothing really changed after his packing, except the desk-space now looked cleaner without his books. The small living space had always been sparse, and it didn't change its looks now that he was leaving.

That was just fine with him. He slipped on his shoes, locking the door from the inside before pulling it shut behind him. He'd left his key by the goban inside, knowing Shindou couldn't miss it there. Waya was making sure it was a clean break, with no confusion and no regrets. After all, that was what they'd agreed to.

Most people would have thought that the communication between Shindou and Waya would be static-y at best, both being short-tempered and impulsive. They were wrong; life was just strange like that sometimes.

It didn't taken Waya figured out why breaking up with Hikaru had left him with clean relief instead of the uneasiness he'd half-expected. They had been friends in the beginning, and that had been perfectly clear. Crossing the boundary into a real relationship was a shaky step, but once both realized it wasn't going to work, slipping back into plain friendship was easy, because they had a firm base to fall back on.

It hadn't been like that with Isumi-san, Waya realized as he emerged from the apartment building. Ever since they met so many years ago, there had always been some sexual tension between them, though neither admitted it. Friendship, relationship...the boundary there had never been clearly defined. Neither ever made clear what he thought about the other, only accepted a tentative, unspoken affection that both were afraid would shatter like thin ice.

Maybe it would have even worked out, if Shindou Hikaru hadn't come into Waya's life. When the break-up came, as he thought was inevitable, Isumi only had silence to fall back upon. It was his fault as well, since Waya had been too infatuated with Shindou at the time to notice or care.

Thinking equaled slow walking for Waya, and he ended up getting to the bus station just a minute too late. The next bus wasn't coming for a good thirty minutes, and Waya resigned himself to waiting it out at a nearby McDonald's. He didn't realize that he'd forgotten just _what_ this place was until he was already munching on some fries and a mild voice sounded nearby.

"Taking a trip somewhere, Waya-kun?"

He nearly choked on a fry. Spinning around with an expression that must have bordered on being pole-axed, Waya blinked as he saw who stood beside his table.

"Isumi-san." He swallowed quickly. "Um, no. Just...moving. In a way...I guess."

"Moving back to your own place?" Isumi asked quietly. Waya had forgotten how perceptive he was.

"Yes," he replied. For some reason he felt compelled to explain, though the situation was more than little awkward. "It wasn't working out too well; I guess we both got on each other's nerves too much for a healthy relationship."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Ever the polite gentleman.

"I'm not," Waya heard himself say before he could stop it. "It wasn't so bad really, compared to--" He checked himself before blurting out the rest, _"...compared to what happened between us."_

Luckily, Isumi didn't pursue the awkward ending to his statement. "I'm glad you're not too down over it," was what he said, and the tone of his voice was neither eager nor disappointed. Waya couldn't read the meaning behind the words at all.

"I'll see you around, then," Isumi said, smiling -- the first real smile Waya had seen since the disastrous break-up. Waya hadn't realized how much he'd missed that smile until now. He couldn't help but want to see that smile again, couldn't help but want Isumi to stay.

"Ano sa..." Waya started to say. He looked up, and suddenly found himself gazing directly into Isumi's eyes. The words on his tongue died as a wave of lightheadedness washed over him. He'd forgotten how intense Isumi's gaze could be. Waya swallowed, wondering if Isumi could see right through him.

And if he could... Waya knew what happened between them was a cut that still pained both. He also knew that Isumi was dealing with it in his own way, through silence and an attempt to reach the friendship they never truly defined. Only that wasn't what Waya wanted. Dimly, he felt dirty for swinging so quickly from Isumi to Shindou, and now back...but he couldn't help it. Time spent with Hikaru had shown him that what he felt toward Isumi was much deeper than simple infatuation.

_But you just had to go ruin it, idiot._

And what if Isumi was already completely over him?

"...Um. I'll see you around, Isumi-san." he said, a bit lamely.

Isumi nodded, with a slight air of perplexity, and left. Waya dropped his gaze to the now cold fries, the sound of Isumi's steps ringing in his ears along with the pounding blood.

_Stupid!_ he berated himself. _You should've said something. This is what happened before too, this lack of communication..._

They never seemed to be able to talk freely with one another. At first, Waya wondered if it was because neither of them really felt anything for the other. Was it because both were afraid of breaking the other's heart that words such as "I love you" never passed between them?

Or was it, as he thought now, staring blankly at the cars passing on the street, was it due to fear of admitting the depth of emotion in his heart, fear that the other wouldn't understand?

"Isumi..." he whispered to himself, "I still love you."

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_Yeah, I know, this epilogue/follow-up didn't really have the same tone or mood as Fragrance, but for lack of inspiration (blame my muse for that one)...well, I'm just hoping to get a better fic out sometime next week._

_Thanks muchly to all who reviewed! And as always, reviews/comments/constructive criticism are always welcome!_


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